


Smoke and Gravel

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Reunions, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:19:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simone stomps into Bobbi's hideout after the Big Dig goes sour, demanding answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Gravel

The door slams open, rattling the pictures on the wall as Simone stomps into Bobbi’s hideout. Air choke-thick with dust and that godawful coffee Bobbi makes. The kind that tastes like burnt chicory, itches the back of her nose even as her mouth waters for it.

Bobbi doesn’t bother looking up from her coffee, just grabs another mug from the cupboard and sets it out. Stained, but unchipped. She pours it half-full, jerks her chin at an unopened tin of milk. “You’re late.” Her voice like smoke and gravel, and Simone hates how it runs so smooth through her mouth.

“And _you_ never had a fucking sense of timing, ‘cept when it suited you,” Simone hisses. “I finally get some fucking vacation, come back to Goodneighbor to find you tried stealing from the goddamn _mayor_ \--”

Bobbi rolls her eyes, an unsettling expression at best. Red-rimmed sclera around grey iris, still sharp and piercing. Looks like old glass marbles rattling in her skull. “Hell, if I’d had you for brawn, would’ve worked.” Slides the mug to Simone, ceramic scraping the counter.

Simone ignores it. “I left because you never knew when to draw the fucking line.”

Bobbi snorts, picking up her cup. Bony fingers curled around the handle, one hand under the base for support. More gentle with her drink than she ever was for anyone else. Takes the few steps necessary to sit on the sagging couch. Room’s a mess-- all red, red, red. Peeling red paper on the wall, broken bits of red and black tile, shadows stretching like pools of blood in the wan light of the yellow lantern. “So now you’re playing bodyguard to some smalltime chem-dealer, picking up crumbs.”

“Better crumbs than-- than--” and goddammit but Bobbi’s mocking her, ragged lips twisted into a sneer and the light casting her face in jaundice and shadow. Simone stumbles, trips, skins her tongue across the gravel-patch of tortured metaphor. “Better than a whole damn _cake_ I gotta check for razors.” Rallies, lowering her brows in a dead glare. “And it’s _steady_ , not like your heist jobs.” Simone crosses her arms, rattles her chains against the leather of her coat. Sits on the other end of the couch, legs splayed. Not gonna fucking _touch_ Bobbi, not right now, but not gonna try and hold herself dainty either.

“We could’ve had it all. My brain, your brawn.” Sips her coffee, lips wet. Her hair almost as dark as the goddamn brew, too thick and lush to be anything but a wig, no matter how much Bobbi denies it.

“Why’d you do it, Bobbi?” Simone tries to make it a snap, but her voice breaks instead. Like the metal-crunch of a broken chain, swings open the gate. Like her heart’s a junkyard, feral dogs on the prowl.

“Always liked a challenge.” Bobbi smiles, curls her lips over too-long teeth. A skeletal grin, eyeteeth gleaming. “It’s why I like you.”

Simone twists her mouth into a sneer, roughens her voice. “Don’t get cute.” Hooks her thumb into the front of her buckle, the metal skull digging into the joint. Chill against her skin, palms damp with sweat. Bobbi’s always been cool, while Simone burns hot.

“Not with this face, I’m not.” Bobbi sips her coffee. Tilts the mug, upends the dregs into her mouth. Chuckles, smacking her lips as she pulls a packet of cigarettes from her pocket. “And you’ve got lipstick on your teeth.”

Simone growls, rubbing her knuckle against her teeth to smudge it off. Pink pigment smeared on her skin. “Bobbi, this shit’s just not fair. You could’ve gotten yourself _killed_.”

Bobbi snaps the lighter, flame flaring at the tip of her fingers as she lights the cigarette. Pulls it in with a long drag. Exhales slow, the ash and nicotine winding through the air. Simone resists the urge to breathe it in, like she’ll trap some small piece of Bobbi inside her lungs. Like the smoke might chain their breaths.

“Easy for you to say. You’re gonna die before I do.”

And there it is-- ugly as an old scar, a jagged wound they keep ripping open. Keeps spilling pus over all their conversations, clots their lungs.

“Like that’s a goddamn excuse!” Simone shouts, rage like knives up her throat-- and rage is easier than grief, easier to scruff a howling thing caged inside her ribs than something whimpering for what’s not even gone, yet. “You lived this goddamn long without me, you’re gonna _keep_ living after I’m dead! You can’t leave me a fucking _widow_ just because that’d be _easier_ for you, Bobbi!”

“I buried two wives before you, Simone.”

“Tough shit! You’ve had practice, then!” And it’s unfair, it’s so fucking unfair, words thrown like crockery, shattering against the walls. Bobbi does not flinch, but Bobbi never flinches-- never backs down, only calls a strategic retreat when she knows she’s outmatched. Simone presses forward, can’t unspeak what’s been said, so pushes her tongue bleeding through the wreckage. “If you want to leave me that bad, then just _tell_ me and we can call it quits!”

Bobbi tightens her lips, narrows her eyes. Stubs her cigarette in the ashtray, even though she just lit it. “You were the one who left.”

“Because you fucking _pushed_ me!” Simone twists sideways, knees bumping Bobbi’s on this goddamn ugly couch that feels too damn small, and it’s a friction-spark, rough denim against Bobbi’s slacks, but she leans over, twists her fists into the front of Bobbi’s vest and snarls. Nose to what’s left of Bobbi’s nose, so close she tastes Bobbi’s breath on her skin, salt and and savor and an edge of whiskey. Like charred offerings, burnt promises. “You want me to go, I’ll go! You want me to stay, I’ll stay! Just make up your goddamn mind!”

Bobbi’s smile twists cruel, and when she speaks, she’s smoke and gravel again. A whiskey-pour of husky promises, eyes sharp as broken glass. “You’re always the one on my mind, Simone. You know what I want?” And they’re already close, too close, Bobbi’s words shaping breath across Simone’s lips. Could kiss the smoke from her mouth.

Simone doesn’t even have to guess what Bobbi wants, not the way Bobbi drops her voice, twists her hand in the back of Simone’s collar. Ragged nails scraping skin as Bobbi growls, “I want you to scream for me. Like that night when the rain beat the windows.”

And fuck, but Simone remembers that night. Remembers the green-static taste of the irradiated downpour, the cool and damp of her palm pressed to the glass, her other hand gripping the bedpost. Like a tattoo buried beneath her skin, the memory still as high as any chem-rush.

Bobbi smiles, purrs low and dangerous. Glitter-sharp like a switchblade, promises tucked in her back teeth. “It rained so fucking loud we couldn’t hear the radio, then you were screaming so loud we couldn’t hear the rain.” Her voice a caress, like a gentle hand at the crook of your elbow while the other hand hides the knife. “Want you to wear my bites like a goddamn necklace, want you to snarl and sass like you did when we tumbled that Diamond City tourist.”

The pretty little Upper Stands snoot, hair in victory rolls like she stepped out of a prewar skin mag, cheap pearl earrings and a silver-plated cross around her neck. Was into ghouls and leather and Bobbi and Simone bossing her around, walking her through her paces and giving her a Goodneighbor welcome. Sent her home staggering, bruises for souvenirs, while Bobbi and Simone laughed into their cupped hands and passed a cigarette between them.

“Want you to remember the way we fit, like a gun in its holster, like whiskey in the bottle.” Rough music in her words, a gait and rhythm that's all Bobbi, Bobbi, Bobbi. Like pulling prayers from the dead, expecting Simone to rebury this argument they keep exhuming.

But Simone’s tired of burying the corpses.

“And I want you to remember we _don’t_ fuck when we’re arguing, because then we just shove that shit down until the next blow-up,” Simone hisses. Heart in her throat, throbbing, bleeding-- and want’s its own sort of chain, but doesn’t mean she can’t break free. Reaches behind her neck, digs her thumb into the tendon of Bobbi’s wrist to loosen her grip, and pulls her off. “I _want_ to stay with you, but then you make it so goddamn hard.”

Bobbi’s face clamps down, eyes tight. Gates slamming shut. “You’ve been talking to a shrink.”

“One of us has to.”

“Didn’t even know they still had shrinks, these days.”

“You’re changing the subject.” Simone bites her lip, tastes copper and regret. Shudders her shoulders down, unstiffens her spine. “Bobbi. Look, I-- I missed you.” And anger’s still easier than grief, but grief flows like water, fills in the gaps and hollows between them. Might nurture something, still, if they can just stop scorched-earth tactics. “Look, I bought those noodles you love. Even brought some mirelurk eggs, can boil ‘em for you. We eat, we talk, we fuck after, right?”

“You didn’t drink your coffee,” Bobbi says. Harsh, accusing. All the prickles hiding that layer of hurt.

“I’ll drink my coffee if you eat your noodles.”

One breath. Two. Heart slowing down, a bleeding thing licking its wounds.

Bobbi nods. “All right.”

And that’s enough to start over.


End file.
